Continuing into Glenelg, Leaving Rocknest behind, sols 102-166 (Nov 18 2012-Jan 23, 2013) Options

[Astro0]

New frontiers Sol 102



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[CosmicRocker]

Thanks, Em. If you have any info on the elemental or mineralogical composition, it would be interesting to know.

All of this apparent fracturing/dessication of early Martian sediments fascinates me. On various scales we see the boxwork features at Gale and Cape York. Earlier in the MSL mission we saw possible mud cracks and even larger polygonal fracturing in the distant slopes of Mt. Sharp. From orbit, HiRise reveals large-scale boxwork/polygons on the surface. I don't know if any of these are related, but it is tempting to guess.

I have to imagine that there is a whole new paradigm unfolding. It's fascinating...

[Gerald]

... If you have any info on the elemental or mineralogical composition, it would be interesting to know. ...

There have been released APXS and ChemCam data about Snake River to the PDS today.

ChemCam investigated Snake River on Sol 147 with a 1x5 raster, 30 laser shots at each raster point. Annotated spectra can be found in this PDS subdirectory. The target name and other metadata can be found in file msl_ccam_obs.csv of this PDS subdirectory.

APXS investigated Snake River on Sol 149. Calculated elemental composition can be found in the rwp-csv-file in this PDS subdirectory (easy to read with a text editor after download). The target name is documented in the first line of the rsp-csv-file of the same directory.
APXS measurement may have included some dust.

Excerpt of the APXS rwp-file, sorted by abundancy ("computed weight percent of the oxide", see associated lbl-file):

"oxide", "APXS analysis ver 1","statistical uncertainty (precision)"
SiO2 , 43.71 , 0.96
FeO , 23.64 , 0.51
Al2O3 , 7.41 , 0.38
CaO , 6.94 , 0.35
MgO , 6.42 , 0.33
SO3 , 5.40 , 0.27